Not one of the ladies showed a sign of fear. Mrs. Beauchamp was quiet and self-controlled. Perhaps there was a trace of anxiety as her eye followed the light, fawn-like movements of Constance, or when she thought of her husband out trying to assure himself of the safety of others. But there was no fear. Mrs. MacAllister was at her best. Whatever her faults might be, timidity was not one of them. She belonged to a war-like people. Her colour was high Her dark eyes shone with a strange fire. She looked a score of years younger than she was. Her husband was struck by the change in her. He found an opportunity to say:
"You look beautiful to-day, Flora."
"I am thinking of you, Hector. If you have to go out into danger, I want to go with you. Now I know why Allister would be a soldier. And I know what Jessie would mean when she says she wishes she wass a man. I nefer knew before."
She was deeply moved. The instinct of a fighting race had suddenly come to life with the sound of battle and the accent of her childhood's speech was back upon her tongue.
She looked around for her daughter. Miss MacAllister was standing near a window talking to Boville. She was drawn up to her full height, dwarfing the rotund commissioner of customs. Her cheeks were burning. Her eyes had an almost unnatural light. Her bosom was heaving with the short, quick breath of one in struggle. Perhaps for the first time in her life Mrs. MacAllister understood her daughter's feelings. But she did not understand how much their interview of the day before had added to their intensity.
"Mr. Boville, I really cannot stay in here and not be able to see what is going on. I simply cannot. Let us go out on the verandah."
"Very well, Miss MacAllister. I do not know that it is any more dangerous there. I shall be glad to go with you."
"So shall I!" exclaimed Mrs. Thomson, whose natural vivacity had likewise been quickened by the excitement of the occasion. "I must go out. If there's any danger, let's take it in the open, and not shut up here like rats in a hole."
Her husband made a slow and feeble protest. But, with a half-defiant "You may hide in here if you want to," she ran out where she could get a view. Meanwhile, Constance Beauchamp danced in and out, bringing reports of what was to be seen to her mother, who remained sedately inside.
A heavy projectile splashed in the river midway between the company's jetty and the Locust. Another dropped on a cargo boat lying at the jetty, smashing through its bottom. The boat immediately filled and sank. A third drove into the soft mud of the shore close by and exploded, bespattering the whole vicinity with slime. There was a moan and rush nearer still, a shrill human shriek, a splitting crash, and a small native house spouted up a cloud of dust and splinters and fragments of sun-dried brick. Then it collapsed in a little heap of debris. In that heap were the bodies of an old Chinese peasant and his wife, and a little child. The great guns of the French Republic's battleships had claimed some notable victims.